Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 6, 2026
Use of a Psychophysiological Script-driven Imagery Experiment to Study Trauma-related Dissociation in Borderline Personality Disorder
Published on: March 8, 2018
Emotional or educational debriefing after psychological trauma. Randomised controlled trial
Marit Sijbrandij1, Miranda Olff, Johannes B Reitsma
1Academic Medical Centre, Department of Psychiatry, Tafelbergweg 25, 1105 BC, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. e.m.sijbrandij@amc.uva.nl
Background:
Recent studies show that individual single-session psychological debriefing does not prevent and can even aggravate symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Aims:
We studied the effect of emotional ventilation debriefing and educational debriefing v. no debriefing on symptoms of PTSD, anxiety and depression.
Method:
We randomised 236 adult survivors of a recent traumatic event to either emotional ventilation debriefing, educational debriefing or no debriefing (control) and followed up at 2 weeks, 6 weeks and 6 months.
Results:
Psychiatric symptoms decreased in all three groups over time, without significant differences between the groups in symptoms of PTSD (P=0.33). Participants in the emotional debriefing group with high baseline hyperarousal score had significantly more PTSD symptoms at 6 weeks than control participants (P=0.005).
Conclusions:
Our study did not provide evidence for the usefulness of individual psychological debriefing in reducing symptoms of PTSD, anxiety and depression after psychological trauma.
